Digesting the Austin plane crash incident

Coverage of the plane crash in Austin today has kept me pretty well riveted.

Of course, it’s in my state, I have friends in Austin, spent tons of time in Austin and love all things Austin pretty much except for its traffic and Ashe juniper, or mountain cedar, to which I am extremely allergic. Also, since the act by the pilot allegedly seems intentionally aimed at the Internal Revenue Service definitely sends some chills up my spine. I’ll tell you why, but first a brief an account of what I’ve heard about this so far,

A man from North Austin allegedly set his house on fire this morning before taking off in a small plane from the Georgetown, Texas, Municipal Airport and crashing the plane in a Northwest Austin building housing a number of IRS employees. From what I have heard on TV, the pilot reportedly died — certainly not unexpected given the state of the building(s) damaged by the plane and from the fire that resulted — two others were injured and one is missing.

The pilot of the plane, Joseph Stack, left a rambling statement and apparent suicide note on his Web site railing against the IRS. The Austin American-Statesman, which has some excellent coverage, displays Stack’s rant on one of the newspaper blogs. The post ominously raises the specter of a violent act and is signed by “Joe Stack (1956-2010):

“I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.”

Since this has just happened there is little known else about this man who, hopefully, has only managed to kill himself despite causing a spectacular crash with resulting damage. The Los Angeles Times reported Stack was an Austin software engineer who experienced a number of business and tax problems in Los Angeles in the 1980s and 90s. The FAA registration for Stack’s plane, a single-engine Piper, showed his address as an apartment in Lincoln, Calif., a suburb of Sacramento. This registration was dated 1998. News reports indicated that Stack’s wife and daughter were trapped inside the house when it was torched but they were saved by firefighters.

This is not the first time an Austin IRS facility has been targeted for attack. Undercover ATF agents arrested a Tyler, Texas, car salesman, in 1995 for plotting to blow up the IRS building in Austin. Charles Ray Polk was sentenced to 249 months in federal prison for a number of charges including attempted use of weapons of mass destruction. A summation of the events leading up to his arrest are noted here in a decision on an appeal before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

As I noted earlier, the events in Austin today are chilling. While we don’t know the details that went into planning this act — whether it was a wider domestic terror act — or just “Another Lone Nut” as was the name of a HBO special by comedian and actor Richard Belzer, it is definitely scary. Scary, I say, because someone can apparently just hop in the ol’ family plane, fire her up and crash her into any populated building. He could have crashed into one of the high rises downtown, the UT Tower or the beautiful Texas State Capitol.

It is likewise scary that people whose minds are filled with hate or are terribly disturbed think so little of their fellow human beings that they either don’t care or intend to kill others as well as those who are in their way. It is especially disturbing to those who work for the government, some even part-time, who see less and less  cooperation by the public in making our federal system work.  There are a lot of government haters out there these days. Hopefully, more of them won’t snap.

I have to say a word about coverage today. I’ve been checking out, of course, the Austin-area news outlet Web sites and watching CNN. I must say CNN’s anchoring has been mostly weak, especially watching Tony Harris and Rick Sanchez. Even when Wolf Blitzer’s “Situation Room” comes on it won’t be the best, but will be better than other shows today. Thankfully, CNN still has resources to pull of good breaking news coverage.